In certain situations, dwellings have rooms that are located at least partially below a surface of ground that is located adjacent to an outer wall of the dwellings. Depending on factors such as the intended use of such rooms and the elevation of the ground surface adjacent to other portions of the dwelling, it may be necessary to provide the room with a manner in which persons in the room with the ability to egress from the room in emergency instances where other egress mechanisms are blocked or are otherwise unavailable.
In these situations, it is convention to provide a window or door in the room that provides an alternative means of egress from the room. Since this window or door may be located at least partially below the ground surface that is adjacent to the window or door, a recess may be formed in the ground that corresponds to the provide access to the window or door.
To prevent the ground from refilling the recess, a window well enclosure may be placed at least partially into the ground. The window well enclosure may thereby provide an open region through which a person may pass if it is needed to egress from the room through the window or door.
One such window well enclosure is a metal sheet that is bent into a semi-circular shape. The ends of the metal sheet are placed along the outer surface of the dwelling to thereby prevent the ground from passing around the metal sheet and into the recess.
It is also been proposed to use modular configurations to form the window well enclosure. One such modular window well enclosure configuration is discussed in Heady et al., U.S. Pat. No. 7,770,340. Heady indicates that elongated segments may be used to form the front and side walls of the window well enclosure. The elongated segments join together to form the window well enclosure. Depending on the desired height of the window well enclosure, multiple rows of elongated segments may be placed on top of each other.